but literally as we held short of the runway some french man two rows behind me ran his flight attendant call button and then said "there's a piece of the plane missing", and he was right...
the fuel "pylons" as the pilot referred to them as, on the 737-800 (located under the flaps and when flaps are deployed, they move with the flaps, see picture at end here). I checked cause of course i was concerned when he said a piece of the plane missing. Sure enough, the back section of one (in a cone, triangular shape) was completley not there on the pylon under the outermost flaps. Right side/wing had one, but the left one was missing the end piece!!!
So the flight attendant ran back and called up front, and about 30 seconds latter the the pilot came on and said "hear there is a bit of concern, we know there is a piece of the pylon missing, and we've factored that in so there's nothing to be concerned about".
so my question is, why would they just leave a piece missing???
it would be the end piece similar to this picture:
Photo © Tim Lachenmaier
[Edited 2004-06-19 23:30:04]
[Edited 2004-06-19 23:32:49]
). As mentioned, all airliners have a configuration deviation list, which defines what can be missing. The aircraft maintenance manual will even define which screws can be missing from which panels.
Thanks for clearing that up.
